Say When

So, I quietly did Camp NaNoWriMo in April. I thought maybe without the fanfare of announcing I was doing it and worrying about write-ins and taking part in the community (although all those things are great, and a wonderful part of the experience of NaNoWriMo) I would be more focused on the writing and less on talking about it. It seems to a have worked.

What did I work on? The sequel to Revenants Abroad, tentatively titled The Age of Revenants. Is it finished? Hardly. Let’s call it a good start. It’s about as rough as you’d expect 50,000 words cranked out in haste over 30 days to be. But that’s all right, I needed to get some ideas down, and why not put them towards the goal? A couple of things are kind of going off on tangents so may get revised out later, or possibly saved for something else. But I’m pleased that I was able to get this much done. And let me tell you, it was not easy. It’s one reason I’ve been very quiet on Twitter over the last month. And I really had to make a push during the last weekend. So apologies for any crankiness. It’s an insane way to get some writing done, but I feel like I have no choice these days. Would that I could quit the dayjob and just write. I’m so close to handing in my notice I can’t even tell you.

It felt good to get some of this stuff down, but it seems like the more I write, the more ideas I get. I’ve become better about grabbing a pen and paper when I get those lines just as I’m drifting off to sleep, which seems to happen more and more. I suspect I’m not unique in this.

Now to finish RA, get a cover, and get it up at Amazon. I’ve decided to self-pub via KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) as agents seem unanimous in their distaste for vampire stories these days. I think there’s still a market, so am taking it upon myself to publish it and see what happens. As I told my dear friend Bunny this morning, I’m taking steel wool to the last few pages, finishing up edits (caught a couple of doozy typos), then I’ll need to get a cover created, and maybe a couple more beta readers, and hopefully have it up for sale before the end of the summer. I have to be done with this so I can move on to the next one. I just haven’t figured out when to say “when.”

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Published by D. D. Syrdal

Writer of vampire stories and science fiction. First novel, "Revenants Abroad", available now at Amazon. If you like a vampire you can go out drinking with and still respect yourself in the morning, I think you'd like Andrej.
View all posts by D. D. Syrdal

Congrats on completing 50,000 words! I thought about participating, but then I had a lot of travel obligations this month and abandoned the idea. I’m glad it worked for you. And good to hear RA is near completion. Good luck with the self-publishing. 🙂

Thank you, m’dear! It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision, which is how these things often happen in my life. I thought if I kept it quiet and went down in flames again at least I wouldn’t have to do it publicly.

There’s always NaNoWriMo in November… 😉 I know that’s a tough month for a lot of people with Thanksgiving in there. Even if you’re not traveling to see family, you still sort of lose a couple days for the holiday (I always do the cooking at my house). Then the day after I’m too wiped out to think.

Thanks, Eric. Honestly it’s the only thing that keeps me from killing myself most days. I have to have something in my life beyond this soul-sucking dayjob. Some days the stories are more real to me than real life, and I wonder why I’m here and not there 😉